New York HEAT
by IMJUSTSAYIN1
Summary: A New York real estate tycoon plunges to his death on a Manhattan sidewalk. A trophy wife with a past survives a narrow escape from a brazen attack,. Mobsters and moguls with no shortage of reasons to kil trot out their alibis. and then, in the suffocating grip of a record heat wave, comes another shocking murder and a sharp turn in a tense journey into the dirty little secrets.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey guys i'm back just taking a break from Beauty and the playboy also let me know if I should continue **

**this or not thanks enjoy**

**don't own Austin and Ally**

It was always the same for her when she arrived to meet the body. After she unbuckled her seat belt,

after she pulled a stick pen from the rubber band on the sun visor, after her long fingers brushed her hip

to feel the comfort of her service piece, what she always did was pause. Not long. Just the length of a

slow deep breath. That's all it took for her to remember the one thing she will never forget. Another body

waited. She drew the breath. And when she could feel the raw edges of the hole that had been blown in

her life, Detective Ally Dawson was ready. She opened the car door and went to work.

The wallop of one hundred degrees almost shoved her back in the car. New York was a furnace, and the

soft pavement on West 77th gave under her feet like she was walking on wet sand. Ally could have made

it easier on herself by parking closer, but this was another of her rituals: the walk up. Every crime scene

was a flavor of chaos, and these two hundred feet afforded the detective her only chance to fill the clean

slate with her own impressions.

Thanks to the afternoon swelter, the sidewalk was nearly empty. The neighborhood lunch rush was over,

and tourists were either across the street cooling in the American Museum of Natural History or seeking

refuge in Starbucks over iced drinks ending in vowels. Her disdain for the coffee drinkers dissolved into a

mental note to get one herself on the way back to the precinct. Ahead she clocked a doorman at the

apartment building just her side of the barrier tape that encircled the sidewalk café. His hat was off and he

was sitting on the worn marble steps with his head between his knees. She looked up at the hunter green

canopy as she passed him and read the building name: The Guilford.

Did she know the uniform flashing her the smile? She rapid-fired a slideshow of faces but stopped when

she realized he was just checking her out. Detective Dawson smiled back and parted her linen blazer to

give him something else to fantasize about. His face rearranged itself when he saw the shield on her

waistband. The young cop lifted the yellow tape for her to duck under, and when she came up she caught

him giving her a sex-ray again, so she couldn't resist. "Make you a deal," she said. "I'll watch my ass, you

watch the crowd."

Detective Ally Dawson entered her crime scene past the vacant hostess podium of the sidewalk café. All

the tables at La Chaleur Belle were empty except one where Detective Dallas Jones of her squad sat with

a distraught family with sunburned faces struggling to translate German into a statement. Their uneaten

lunch swarmed with flies. Sparrows, avid outdoor diners themselves, perched on seat backs and made

bold dives for pommes frites. At the service door Detective Worthy looked up from his notebook and

quick-nodded her while he questioned a busboy in a white apron flecked with blood. The rest of the

serving staff was inside at the bar having a drink after what they had witnessed. Dawson looked over to

where the medical examiner knelt and couldn't blame them one bit.

"Male unknown, no wallet, no identification, preliminary age range sixty to sixty-five. Severe blunt force

trauma to head, neck, and chest." Trish Delarosa's gloved hand peeled back the sheet for her friend Ally

to have a look at the corpse on the sidewalk. The detective glanced and quickly looked away. "No face, so

we'll comb the area for any dental; otherwise not much to ID from after that impact. Is this where he

landed?"

"There." The M.E. indicated the café busing station a few feet away. It had caved in from the top so hard

it was split in half. The violent splash of ice and blood had already baked into the sidewalk in the minutes

since the fall. As Dawson stepped over there, she noted that the café umbrellas and the stone walls of the

building also wore dried blood, ice spatter, and bits of tissue. She got as close to the wreckage as she

dared without contaminating the scene and looked straight up.

"It's raining men."

Ally Dawson didn't even turn. She just sighed his name. "Moon."

"Hallelujah." He held onto his smile until she finally looked at him, shaking her head. "What? It's OK, I

don't think he can hear me."

She wondered what sort of karma payback it was for her to be saddled with this guy. It wasn't the first

time that month she had wondered it, either. The job was hard enough if you were doing it right. Add a

reporter with a mouth playing make-believe cop and your day just got a little longer. She backed up to

the long flower boxes that defined the perimeter of the outdoor café and looked up again. Moon moved

with her. "I would have been here sooner except somebody didn't call me. If I hadn't phoned Worthy, I

would have missed this."

"It's just tragedy upon tragedy, isn't it?"

"You wound me with your sarcasm. Look, I can't research my article on New York's finest without access,

and my deal with the commissioner specifically states—"

"Trust me, I know your deal. I've been living day and night. You get to observe on all my homicides just

like real-life detectives who work for a living."

"So you forgot. I accept your apology."

"I didn't forget, and I didn't hear any apology. At least not from me."

"I kind of inferred it. You radiate subtext."

"Someday you're going to tell me what favor you did for the mayor to get this ride-along pushed through."

"Sorry, Detective Dawson, I'm a reporter and that's strictly off the record."

"Did you kill a story that made him look bad?"

"Yes. God, you make me feel cheap. But you'll get nothing more."

Detective Worthy wrapped his busboy interview and Ally beckoned him over. "I passed a doorman for this

building who looked like he was having a very bad day. Go check him out, see if he knows our Doe."

When she turned back, Moon had curled his hands to form skin binoculars and was sighting up the

building overlooking the café. "I call the balcony on six."

"When you write your magazine article, you can make it any floor you like, Mr. Moon. Isn't that what you

reporters do, speculate?" Before he could reply, she held her forefinger to his lips. "But we're not celebrity

journalists here. We're just the police, and darn it, we have these pesky things called facts to dig up and

events to verify. And while I try to do my job, would it be too much to ask that you maintain a little

decorum?"

"Sure. No problem."

"Thank you."

"Austin? Austin Moon?!" Moon and Dawson turned to see a young woman behind the police line waving

and jumping up and down for his attention. "Oh my God, it's him, it's Austin Moon!" Moon gave her a

smile and a wave, which only made his fan more excited. Then she ducked under the yellow tape.

"Hey, no, get back!" Detective Dawson signaled to a pair of uniforms, but the woman in the halter and

cutoffs was already inside the line and approaching Moon. "This is a crime scene, you have to go."

"Can I at least get an autograph?"

Dawson weighed expediency. The last time she tried to chase off one of his fans, it had involved ten

minutes of arguing and an hour writing up an answer to the woman's official complaint. Literate fans are

the worst She nodded to the uniforms and they waited.

"I saw you on The View yesterday morning. Oh my God, you're even cuter in person." She clawed through

her straw bag but kept her eyes on him. "After the show I ran out and bought the magazine so I could

read your story, see?" She pulled out the latest issue of First Press. The cover shot was Moon and Bono at

a relief center in Africa. "Oh! I have a Sharpie."

"Perfect." He took the marker and reached for her magazine.

"No, sign this!" She took a step closer and tugged aside the cup of her halter.

Moon smiled. "I think I'm going to need more ink." "The woman exploded with laughter and clutched

Ally Dawson's arm. "See? This is why he's my favorite writer."

But Dawson was focused on the front steps of the Guilford, where Detective Worthy clapped a sympathetic

hand on the shoulder of the doorman. He left the shade of the canopy, did a limbo under the tape, and

crossed to her. "Doorman says our vic lived in this building. Sixth floor."

Ally heard Moon clear his throat behind her but didn't turn. He was either gloating or signing a groupie's

breast. She wasn't in the mood to see either one.

An hour later in the solemn hush of the victim's apartment, Detective Dawson, the embodiment of

sympathetic patience, sat in an antique tapestry chair across from his wife and their seven-year-old son. A

blue reporter's-cut spiral notebook rested closed on her lap. Her naturally erect dancer's posture and the

drape of her hand on the carved wooden armrest gave her a look of regal ease. When she caught Austin

staring at her from across the room, he turned away and studied the Jackson Pollock on the wall in front

of him. She reflected on how much the paint splatters echoed the busboy's apron downstairs, and though

she tried to stop it, her cop's brain began streaming its capture video of the mangled busing station, the

slack faces of traumatized wait staff, and the coroner's van departing with the body of real estate mogul

Jimmy Starr.

Dawson wondered if Starr was a jumper. The economy, or, more accurately, the lack of it, had triggered

scores of collateral tragedies. On any given day, the country seemed one turn of a hotel maid's key away

from discovering the next suicide or murder-suicide of a CEO or tycoon. Was ego an antidote? As New

York real estate developers went, Jimmy Starr didn't write the book on ego, but he sure did the term

paper. A perennial also-ran in the race to slap his name on the outside of everything with a roof, you had

to credit Starr with at least staying in the chase.

And by the looks of his digs, he had been weathering the storm lavishly on two luxury floors of a landmark

building just off Central Park West. Every furnishing was either antique or designer; the living room was a

grand salon two stories high, and its walls were covered up to the cathedral ceiling by collectible art. Safe

bet nobody left take-out menus or locksmith brochures at this front door.

A trace of muffled laughter turned Ally Dawson's attention to the balcony where Detectives Jones and

Worthy, a duo affectionately condensed to "Jonthy," were working. Kimberly Starr rocked her son in a

long hug and didn't seem to hear it. Dawson excused herself and crossed the room, gliding in and out of

ponds of light beaming down from the upper windows, casting an aura on her. She sidestepped the

forensics tech dusting the French doors and went out onto the balcony, flipping her notebook to a blank

page.

"Pretend we're going over notes." Dallas and Dez exchanged confused looks then drew closer to her. "I

could hear you two laughing in there."

"Oh, jeez…," said Dez. He winced and the sweat bead clinging to the tip of his nose fell onto her page.

"Listen to me. I know to you this is just another crime scene, right? But for that family in there, it's the

only one they've ever experienced."

"Are you hearing me? Good." She half turned to the door and turned back. "Oh. And when we get out of

here? I want to hear that joke. I could use it."

When Dawson came back in, the nanny was ushering Kimberly's son out of the room. "Take Matty outside

for a while, Agda. But not out front. Do you hear me? Not out front." She pulled another tissue and

dabbed her nose.

Agda stopped in the archway. "It is so hot in the park today for him." The Scandinavian nanny was a

looker and could have been Kimberly's coed sister. A comparison that made Ally ponder the age disparity

between Kimberly Starr, who she ballparked at twenty-eight, and her dead husband, a man in his mid-

sixties. Can you say Trophy Wife, boys and girls?

Matty's solution was the movies. The new Pixar film was out, and even though he'd seen it on its first day,

he wanted to go again. Ally made a note to take her niece to it on the weekend. That little girl loved

animated movies. Almost as much as Ally. Nothing like a niece to provide the perfect excuse to spend two

hours enjoying pure innocence. Matty Starr left with an unsure wave, sensing something amiss but so far

spared the news that would descend upon the little boy soon enough.

"Once again, Mrs. Starr, I'm sorry for your loss." "Thank you, Detective." Her voice came from a far

place. She sat primly, smoothing the pleats of her sundress and then waited, immobile except for the

tissue she absently twisted on her lap.

"I know this isn't the best time, but there are some questions I'm going to need to ask."

"I understand." Again, the waif voice, measured, remote, and what else? Dawson wondered. Yes, proper.

Ally uncapped her pen. "Were you or your son here when it happened?"

"No, thank God. We were out." The detective made a short note and folded her hands. Kimberly waited,

rolling a chunk of black onyx from her David Yurman necklace, then

filled the silence. "We went to Dino-Bites over on Amsterdam. We had frozen tar pit soup. It's just melted

chocolate ice cream with Gummysaurs. Matty loves the tar pit soup."

Austin sat down on the toile Chippendale wing chair opposite Ally. "Do you know if anyone else was

home?" asked Austin

"No, I don't think so." She seemed to see him for the first time. "Have we met? You look familiar."

Ally jumped in to close that flank, and fast. "Mr. Moon is a journalist. A magazine writer working with us in

an unofficial capacity. Very unofficial."

"A reporter…You're not going to do a story about my husband, are you?"

"No. Not specifically. I'm just doing background research on this squad." he said reassuring her

"Good. Because my husband wouldn't like that. He thought all reporters were assholes."

Ally Dawson said she understood completely, but she was looking at Moon when she said it. And then she

continued, "Did you notice any changes in your husband's mood or behavior recently?"

"Jimmy did not kill himself, don't even go there." Her demure, preppy composure vaporized in a flare of

anger.

"Mrs. Starr, we just want to cover all—"

"Don't! My husband loved me and"

"our son. He loved life. He was building a mixed-use low-rise with green technology, for God's sake."

Beads of perspiration sprouted under her side-swept bangs. "Why are you asking stupid questions when

you could be looking for his killer?"

Detective Dawson let her vent. She had been through enough of these to know that the composed ones

had the most rage to siphon off. Or was she just recalling herself back when she was the one in The Loss

Chair, nineteen years old with her world suddenly imploding around her? Had she really siphoned off all

her rage, or merely clamped a lid on it?

"It's summer, damn it, we should be in the Hamptons. This wouldn't have happened if we were at

Stormfall." Now, that's money. You don't just buy an estate in East Hampton, you name it. Stormfall was

beachfront, secluded, and Seinfeld-adjacent with a partial Spielberg view. "I hate this city," Kimberly

shouted. "Hate it, hate it. What is this, like, murder number three hundred so far this year? As if they

even matter to you people after a while." She panted, apparently finished. Ally closed her notebook and

circled around the coffee table to sit beside her on the sofa. "Please hear me. I know how difficult this is."

"No, you don't." "I'm afraid I do." She waited for the meaning of that to sink in on Kimberly, then

continued. "Murders are not numbers to me. A person died. A loved one. Someone you thought you were

eating dinner with tonight is gone. A little boy has lost his father. Someone is responsible. And you have

my promise I will see your case through." Mollified or maybe just shock-worn, Kimberly nodded and asked i

f they could finish this later. "Right now I just want to go to my boy." She left them in the apartment to

continue their investigation. After she left, Moon said, "I always wondered where all those Martha

Stewarts came from. They must breed them on a secret farm in Connecticut."

"Thank you for not interrupting" "while she was spewing."

Moon shrugged. "I'd like to say that was sensitivity, but it was really because of the chair. It's hard for a

man to sound authoritative surrounded by toile. OK, now that she's gone, can I tell you I got a vibe off

her I don't like?"

"Uh-huh, I'm not surprised. That was a hell of a shot she took at your 'profession.' Accurate though it

was." Dawson turned, in case her inner smile leaked onto her face, and started back to the balcony.

He fell in with her. "Oh, please, I have two Pulitzers, I don't need her respect." She gave him a side

glance. "Although, I did kind of want to tell her that the series of articles I wrote about my month

underground with the Chechen rebels are being optioned for a movie."

"Why didn't you? Your self-aggrandizement might have been a welcome distraction from the fact that her

husband just died a violent death."

They stepped out into the afternoon scorch, where Dallas and Dez's shirts had soaked clean through.

"What have you got, Jonthy?"

"Definitely not liking suicide," said Dallas. "A, check out the fresh paint chips and stone dust. Somebody

banged open those French doors pretty hard, like during a struggle."

"And B," Worthy picked up, "you've got your trail of scuff marks leading from the doors across the…what is

this?"

"Terra-cotta tile," said Austin.

"Right. Shows the marks pretty good, huh? And they go all the way to here." He stopped at the

balustrade. "This is where our man went over."

All four of them leaned to look below. "Wow," said Austin. "Six floors down. It is six, isn't it, fellas?"

"Let it go, Austin," said Ally.

"But here's our telltale." Dez got on his knees to indicate something on the railing with his pen. "You'll

have to get close." He backed up to make room for Ally, who knelt to see where he was pointing. "It's torn

fabric. Forensics geek says it'll test out as blue denim" "after he runs it. Our vic wasn't wearing jeans, so

this came from someone else."

Austin knelt down beside her to look. "As in someone who shoved him over." Ally nodded, as did Austin.

They turned to face each other, and she was a little startled by his proximity but didn't pull back. Nose-to-

nose with him in the heat, she held his gaze and watched the dance of reflected sunlight playing off his

brown eyes. And then she blinked. Oh shit, she thought, what was that? I can't be attracted to this guy.

No way.

Detective Dawson quickly rose to her feet, crisp and all business. "Jonthy? I want you to run a background

on Kimberly Starr. And check out her alibi at that ice cream place on Amsterdam." "So," said Austin, rising

beside her, "you got a vibe off her, too, huh?"

"I don't do vibes. I do police work." Then she hurried away to the apartment.

Later, on the elevator ride down, she asked her detectives, "OK, what was so funny that I could have

killed you both with my bare hands? And so you know, I am trained to do that."

"Aw, nothing, just letting the giddy out, you know how it gets," said Dez. "Yeah, nothing at all," said

Dallas.

Two floors of silence passed and they both started a low hum of "It's Raining Men" before they cracked

up.

"That? That's what you were laughing at?"

"This," said Austin, "may be the proudest moment of my life."

As they stepped back out into the blast furnace and gathered under the Guilford canopy, Austin said,

"You'll never guess who wrote that song."

"I don't know songwriters, man," from Dallas.

"You'd know this one."

"Elton John?"

"Wrong."

"Clue?"

A woman's scream cut through the rush-hour noise of the city, and Ally Dawson bounded onto the

sidewalk, her head swiveling to search up and down the block.

"Over there," called the doorman, pointing toward Columbus. "Mrs. Starr!"

Ally followed his gaze to the corner, where a large man gripped Kimberly Starr by the shoulders and

jammed her against a store window. It thundered on impact but did not break.

Ally was off in a sprint, with the other three close behind. She waved her shield and hollered at

pedestrians to move as she wove through the after-work crowd. Dallas fisted his two-way and called for

backup.

"Police, freeze," called Ally.

In the assailant's split second of alarm, Kimberly went for a groin kick that missed wildly. The man was

already on the move and she torqued herself down to the pavement. "Dez," said Ally, pointing at Kimberly

as she passed. Dez stopped to attend her while Dallas and Austin followed Ally, dodging cars into the

crosswalk on 77th. A tour bus making an illegal turn blocked their path. Ally ran around the bus's rear

end, through a puff of hot diesel exhaust, emerging on the cobblestone sidewalk that surrounded the

museum complex.

There was no sign of him. She slowed to a jog and then a race-walk across from the Evelyn at 78th.

Dallas was still on his walkie behind her, calling in their location and the man's description: "…male cauc,

thirty-five, balding, six feet, white short-sleeve shirt, blue jeans…"

At 81st and Columbus Ally stopped and turned a circle. A sheen of perspiration glistened on her chest and

fed a darkened V-pattern down the front of her top. The detective showed no sign of fatigue, only

alertness, seeing near and far at the same time, knowing all she needed was a glimpse of any piece of

him to put her back on the run.

"He wasn't in that good a shape." Austin sounded a little winded. "He couldn't have gotten far."

She turned to him, a little impressed he had kept up. And a little annoyed that he had. "What the hell are

you doing here, Moon?"

"Extra set of eyes, Detective."

"Dallas, I'll cover Central Park West and circle the museum. You take 81st to Amsterdam and loop back on

79th."

"Got it." He cut against the grain of the downtown flow on Columbus.

"What about me?"

"Have you noticed I might be too busy to babysit you right now? If you want to be helpful, take that extra

set of eyes and see how Kimberly Starr is doing."

She left him there on the corner without looking back. Ally needed her concentration and didn't want her

focus pulled, not by him. This ride-along was getting tired enough. And what was with that business back

there on the balcony? Pulling up next to her face like some perfume ad in Vanity Fair, those ads that

promise the kind of love that life just never seems to deliver. Lucky she shook herself out of that little

tableau. Still, she wondered, maybe she had just bitch-slapped the guy a little too hard.

When she turned to check on Austin, she didn't see him at first. Then she spotted him halfway down

Columbus. What the hell was he doing crouching behind that planter? He looked like he was spying on

something. She hopped the fence of the dog park and cut across the lawn toward him at a jog. That's

when she saw White Shirt–Blue Jeans climb out of the Dumpster at the rear entrance to the museum

complex. She kicked it up to a sprint. Ahead of her, Austin stood up behind his planter. The guy made him

and took off down the driveway, disappearing into the service tunnel. Ally called out to him, but Austin

was already running into the underground entrance after her perp.

She cursed and leaped over the fence at the other end of the dog park, chasing after them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Don't own Austin and Ally **

**Enjoy**

Ally Dawson's footsteps echoed back at her off the concrete tunnel as she ran. The passage was wide and high, big enough to truck in exhibits for both museums in the

complex: the American Museum of Natural History and the Rose Center for Earth and Space, aka the planetarium. The orange cast of sodium-vapor lamps gave good

visibility, but she couldn't see ahead around the curve of the wall.

She also didn't pick up any other footfalls, and coming around the bend, she saw why not. The tunnel came to a dead end at a loading dock and nobody was there. She

bounded up the steps to the landing, from which a pair of doors fed off—one to the natural history museum on the right, the other to the planetarium on her left. She made a

Zen choice and hit the push bar to the natural history door. It was locked. To hell with instinct; she went for the process of elimination. The door to the planetarium service

bay popped open. She drew her gun and went in.

Ally entered in the Weaver stance, keeping her back to a line of crates. Her academy trainer had drilled her to use the more square and sturdy Isosceles, but in tight quarters

with lots of pivoting, she made her own call and assumed the pose that let her flow and present less target area. She cleared the room quickly, startled only once by an

Apollo space suit dangling from an old display. In the far corner she found an internal staircase. As she approached, somebody upstairs threw a door open against a wall.

Before it slammed shut, Ally was climbing steps two at a time.

She emerged into a sea of visitors roaming the lower level of the planetarium. A camp counselor passed by leading a herd of kids in matching T-shirts. The detective

holstered-up before young eyes could freak out at her gun. Ally waded through them, squinting in the blinding whiteness of the Hall of the Universe, speed-scanning

for Austin or Kimberly Starr's attacker. Over by a rhino-sized meteorite she spotted a security guard on his two-way, pointing at something: Austin, vaulting a banister and

clambering up a ramp that curved around the hall and spiraled to the floor above. Halfway up the incline, her suspect's head popped over the railing to back-check on Austin.

Then he raced on with the reporter in pursuit.

The sign said they were on the Cosmic Pathway, a 360-degree spiral walkway marking the timeline of the evolution of the universe in the length of a football field. Ally

covered thirteen billion years at a personal best. At the top of the incline, quads protesting, she stopped to make another scan. No sign of either of them. Then she heard the

screams of the crowd Ally rested a hand on her holster and orbited under the giant central sphere to see the guest lineup for the space show. The alarmed crowd was parting,

backing away from Moon, who was on the ground taking a rib kick from her man.

The attacker drew back for another kick, and during the most vulnerable part of his balance shift, Ally came up behind him and used her leg to sweep his out from under him.

All six feet of him dropped hard onto the marble. She cuffed him rodeo quick and the crowd broke into applause. Austin sat himself up. "I'm fine, thanks for asking."

"Nice work slowing him down like that. Is that how you rolled in Chechnya?"

"The guy jumped me after I tripped." He pointed under his foot to a bag from the museum store. "On that." Austin opened it up and pulled out an art glass paperweight of a

planet. "Check it out. I tripped on Uranus." When Ally and Austin entered the Interrogation Room, the prisoner snapped upright at the table the way fourth-graders do when

the principal walks in. Austin took the side chair. Ally tossed a file on the table but stayed on her feet. "Stand up," she said. And Chuck Gable did. The detective walked a

circle around him, enjoying his nervousness.

She bent low to examine his blue jeans for any rips that could match the fabric shard the killer had left on the railing. "What did you do here?" "Gable arched himself to look

at the scuff she was pointing to on the back of his leg. "I dunno. Maybe I scraped them on the Dumpster. These are brand-new," he added, as if that might put him in a more

favorable light.

"We're going to want your pants." The guy started to unhitch them right there, and she said, "Not now. After. Sit down." He complied, and she eased into the seat opposite,

all casual, all in charge. "You want to tell us why you attacked Kimberly Starr?"

"Ask her," he said, trying to sound tough but shooting nervous looks at himself in the mirror, a giveaway to her he had "never sat in Interrogation before.

"I'm asking you, Charles," said Ally.

"It's personal."

"It is to me. Battery like that against a woman? I can get very personal about that. You want to see how personal?"

Austin chimed in, "Plus you assaulted me."

"Hey, you were chasing me. How did I know what you were going to pull blondie? I can tell a mile away you're not a cop."

Ally kind of liked that. She arched an eyebrow at Austin and he sat back to stew. She turned back to Gable. "Not your first assault, I see, is it, Chucky?" She made a show of

opening the file. There weren't many pages in it, but her theater made him more uneasy, so she made the most of it. "Two thousand six scrape with a bouncer in SoHo;

2008, you pushed a guy who caught you keying the side of his Mercedes."

"Those were all misdemeanors."

"Those were all assaults. "I lose it sometimes." He forced a John Candy chuckle. "Guess I should stay out of the bars."

"And maybe spend more time at the gym," said Austin.

Ally gave him a cool-it glance. Chuck had turned to the mirror again and adjusted his shirt around his gut. Ally closed the file and said, "Can you tell us your whereabouts this

afternoon, say around one to two P.M.?"

"I want my lawyer."

"Sure. Would you like to wait for him here or down in the Zoo Lockup?" It was an empty threat that only worked on newbies, and Gable's eyes widened. Underneath the

hard-ass face "she fixed on him, Ally was loving how easily he caved. Gotta love the Zoo Lockup. Works every time.

"I was at the Beacon, you know, the Beacon Hotel on Broadway?"

"You do know we will check your alibi. Is there anyone who saw you and can vouch for you?"

"I was alone in my room. Maybe somebody at the front desk in the morning."

"That hedge fund you operate pays for a mighty nice address on East 52nd. Why book a hotel?"

"Come on, are you going to make me say this?" He stared at his own pleading eyes in the mirror then nodded to himself. "I go there a couple times a week. To meet

somebody. You know."

"For sex?" asked Austin.

"Jeez, yeah, sex is part of it. It goes deeper than that."

"And what happened today?" asked Ally.

"She didn't show."

"Bad for you, Chucky. She could be your alibi. Does she have a name?" "Yeah. Kimberly Starr."

When Ally and Austin left Interrogation, Detective Worthy was waiting in the observation booth, staring through the magic mirror at Gable. "Can't believe you wrapped this

interview and didn't ask the most important question." When he had their attention,

he continued, "How did that swamp doofus get a babe like Kimberly Starr into the

sack?" "

You are so superficial," said Ally. "It's not about looks. It's about money."

"Weird Al," said Dallas when the three of them entered the squad room. "'It's Raining

Men'? My guess is Al Yankovic."

"Nope," said Austin. "The song was written by…Ah, I could tell you, but where's the

sport in that? Keep trying. But no fair Googling."

Ally Dawson sat at her desk and swiveled to face the bullpen. "Can I break up

tonight's episode of Jeopardy! for a little police work? Dez, what do we know about

Kimberly

Starr's alibi?"

"We know it doesn't check out. Well, I know, and now you do, too. She was at Dino-

Bites today but left shortly after she got there. Her kid ate his tar pit soup with the

nanny, not his mom."

"What time did she leave?" asked Ally.

Dez flipped through his notes. "Manager says around one, one-fifteen."

Austin said, "I told you I got a vibe off Kimberly Starr, didn't I?" "You like Kimberly Starr as a suspect?" asked Dallas.

"Here's how it spins for me." Austin sat on Ally's desk. She noticed him wince from the rib kicks he'd taken and wished he would get himself checked out. "Our adoring trophy

wife-and-mother has been getting sweet lovin' on the side. Her punch pal Chucky, no looker he, claims she dropped him like a sack of hammers when his hedge fund cratered

and his money supply pinched off. Hence today's assault. Who knows, maybe our dead gazillionaire kept the little missus on a short money leash. Or maybe Jimmy

Starr found out about her affair and she killed him." Dallas nodded. "Does look bad that she was cheating on him."

"I have a novel idea," said Ally. "Why don't we do this thing called an investigation?

Gather evidence, assemble some facts. Somehow that might sound better in court

than, 'Here's how it spins for me.''

Austin took out his Moleskine notebook. "Excellent. This is all going to be swell in my

article." He clicked a pen theatrically to needle her. "So what do we investigate first?"

"Dallas," said Ally, "check out the Beacon, see if Gable's been a regular there. Show

them a picture of Mrs. Starr while you're at it. Dez, how soon can you pull together a

background check on our trophy widow?"

"How's first thing tomorrow?"

"OK, but I was kind of hoping for first thing tomorrow."

Austin raised his hand. "Question? Why not just pick her up? I would love to see what happens when you set her down in your hall of mirrors." "Much as I live my day to

provide you with top entertainment, I'm going to hold off until I learn a little more. Besides, she's not going anywhere."

The next morning, amid flickering lights, City Hall put out the

word for New Yorkers to curtail air-conditioning use and strenuous activity. For Ally Dawson that meant her close-quarter combat training with Elliot, the ex-SEAL, would be

done with the gym windows open. His brand of training combined Brazilian jujitsu, boxing, and judo. Their sparring began at five-thirty with a round of grapples and rolls in

eighty-two degrees and humidity to match. After the second water break Elliot asked her if she wanted to call it. Ally answered with a takedown and a textbook blood choke

and release. She seemed to thrive on the adverse weather, fed on it, really. Rather than wearing her down, the gasping intensity of morning combat pushed out the noise of

her life and left her in a quiet inner place. It was the same way when she and Elliot had sex from time to time. She decided if she had nothing going, maybe next week she'd

suggest another after-hours session to her trainer, with benefits. Anything to get her heart rate up.

Trish led Ally and her reporter tag-along through the autopsy room to the body of Jimmy Starr. "As always, Alls," said the medical examiner, "we don't have the tox work yet,

but barring lab surprises, I'm writing up cause of death as blunt force trauma due to a fall from an unreasonable height."

"And what box are you going to check, suicide or homicide?"

"That's why I called you down. I found something that indicates homicide." The M.E. circled to the other side of the corpse and lifted the sheet. "We've got a series of fist-

sized contusions on the torso. These tell me he got worked over sometime day of. Look closely at this one here." Ally and Austin leaned in at the same time and she drew

away to avoid a repeat of the balcony perfume ad. He stepped back and gestured a be-my-guest. "Very distinct bruising," said the detective. "I can make out knuckles, and

what's this hexagonal shape from, a ring?" She stepped out to let Austin in and said, "Trish, I'd like to get a photo of that one."

Her friend was already holding out a print to her. "I'll put it up on the server so you can copy it, and what did you do, get in a bar fight?" She was looking at Austin.

"Me? Oh, just a little line-of-duty action yesterday. Cool, huh?"

"Way you're standing, my guess is intercostal injury right here." She touched his ribs without pressing. "Does it hurt when you laugh?"

Ally said, "Say 'line-of-duty action' again, that's funny." "Detective Dawson taped autopsy blowups on the bull pen whiteboard to prep for her unit case meeting. She drew a

line with a dry-erase marker and wrote the names of the Forensics print matches off the balcony doors at the Guilford: Jimmy Starr, Kimberly Starr, Matty Starr, and Agda

the nanny. Dallas arrived early with a bag of donut holes and confirmed Chuck Gable's regular hotel bookings at the Beacon. Reception and service staff had identified

Kimberly Starr as his steady guest. "Oh, and the lab work came in on Chuck the Beacon Beefcake's blue jeans," he added. "No match to those balcony fibers."

"No surprise," Ally said. "But it was fun to see how fast he was willing to drop his pants."

"Fun for you," said Austin.

She smiled. "Yeah, definitely one of the perks of the job watching sweaty clods shimmy out of their knockoff jeans."

Dez rushed in, speaking as he crossed to them. "I'm late, it was worth it, shut up." He pulled some printouts from his messenger bag. "I just finished the background check

on Kimberly Starr. Or shall I say Laldomina Batastini of Queens, New Yawk?"

The unit drew close as he read bits from the file. "Our preppy Step-ford Mom was born and raised in Astoria above a mani-pedi salon on Steinway. About as far from the

Connecticut girls' schools and riding academies as you can get. Let's see, high school dropout…and she's got a rap sheet." He handed it to Ally.

"No felonies," she said. "Juvie busts for shoplifting, and later for pot. One DUI…Oh, and, here we go, busted twice at nineteen for lewd acts with customers. Young Laldomina

was a lap dancer at numerous clubs near the airport, performing under the name Samantha."

"I always said Sex and the City fostered poor role modeling," said Austin.

Dez took the sheet back from Ally and said, "I talked to a pal in Vice. Kimberly, Samantha, whatever, hooked up with some guy, a regular at the club, and she married him.

She was twenty. He was sixty-eight and loaded. Her sugar daddy was from Greenwich old money and wanted to take her to the yacht club, so he—" "Let me guess," said

Austin, "he got her a Henry Higgins," drawing blank stares from Jonthy.

"I speak musical theater," Ally said. Right up there with animated films, Broadway was Ally's great escape from her work on the other streets of New York—when she could

swing a ticket. "He means her new husband got his exotic dancer a charm tutor for a presentability makeover. A class on class."

Austin added, "And a Kimberly Starr is born."

"The husband died when she was twenty-one. I know what you're thinking, so I double-checked. Natural causes. Heart attack. The man left her one million dollars." "And a

taste for more. Nice work, Detective." Dez popped a victory donut hole, and smirked at Dallas while Ally continued. "You and Dallas keep a tail on her. Loose one. I'm not

ready to show my hand until I see what else shakes free on other fronts."

Ally had learned years ago that most detective work is grunt work done pounding the phones, combing files, and searching the department's database. The calls she had

made the afternoon before, to Starr's attorney and detectives working complaints against persons, had paid off that morning with a file of people who'd made threats on the

real estate developer's life. She grabbed her shoulder bag and signed out, figuring it was about time to show her celeb magazine writer what fieldwork was all about, but she

couldn't find him.

She had almost left Austin behind when she came upon him standing in the precinct lobby, very occupied. A drop-dead-stunning woman was smoothing the collar of his shirt.

The stunner barked out a laugh, shrieked, "Oh, Austy!" then pulled her designer" "sunglasses off her head to shake her raven shoulder-length hair. Ally watched her lean in

close to whisper, pressing her D-cups right against him. He didn't step back, either. What was Austin doing, making a perfume ad with every damn woman in the city? Then

she stopped herself. Why do I care? she thought. It bothered her that it even bothered her. So she blew it off and walked out, mad at herself for her one look back at them.

"So what's the point of this exercise?" Austin asked on the drive uptown.

"It's something we professionals in the world of detection call detecting." Ally picked the file out of her driver's door pocket and passed it to him. "Somebody wanted Jimmy

Starr dead. A few you'll see in there made actual threats. Others just found him inconvenient."

"So this is about eliminating them?"

"This is about asking questions and seeing where the answers lead. Sometimes you flush out a suspect, sometimes you're getting information you didn't have that takes you

somewhere else. Was that another member of the Austin Moon fan club back there?"

Austin chuckled. "Brooke? Oh, hell, no."

They rode another block in silence. "Because she seemed like a big fan."

"Brooke Johnson is a big fan, all right. Of Brooke Johnson. She's a freelancer for the local glossy mags, always on the prowl for the true crime piece she can up-sell into an

instant book. You know, ripped from the headlines. That operetta back there was all about getting me to cough up some inside stuff on Jimmy Starr."

"She seemed…focused."

Austin smiled. "By the way, that's J-o-h-n-s-o-n, just in case you want to run a check."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

Austin didn't answer. He just gave her a smile that made her blush. She turned away and pretended to watch cross traffic out her side window, worried about what he saw on

her face. Up on the top floor of the Marlowe Building there was no heat wave. In the enveloping coolness of his corner office, Demonica Dixon listened to the recording of her

threatening phone call to Jimmy Starr. She was placid, her palms rested flat and relaxed on her leather blotter as the tiny speaker on the digital recorder vibrated with an

enraged version of her spouting expletives and graphic descriptions of what she would do to Starr, including where on his body she would insert an assortment of weapons,

tools, and firearms. When it was over, she turned it off and said nothing. Ally studied the real estate developer, her gym-rat body, sunken cheeks, and you're-dead-to-me

eyes. A surplus of refrigerated air whispered from unseen vents to fill the silence. She was chilly for the first time in four days. It was a lot like the morgue.

"He actually recorded me saying that?"

"Mr. Starr's attorney provided it when he put the complaint on the record." "Come on, Detective, people say they're going to kill people all the time."

"And sometimes they do it."

Austin observed from a perch on the windowsill, where he divided his attention between Demonica and the lone blader braving the heat in the Trump Skating Rink in Central

Park thirty-five stories below. So far, Ally thought, thank God he seemed content to follow her instructions not to butt in.

"Jimmy Starr was a titan of this industry who will be missed. I respected him and deeply regret that phone call I made. His death was a loss to us all."

Ally had known on sight that this gal was going to take some work. She didn't even look at her shield when she walked in, didn't ask for her lawyer. Said she had nothing to

hide, and if she did, she sensed she was too smart to say anything stupid. This was not a woman to fall for the ol' Zoo Lockup routine. So she danced with her, looking for her

opening. "Why all the bile?" she asked. "What got you so lathered up about a business rival?" "My rival? Jimmy Starr didn't have the skill set to qualify as my rival. Jimmy

Starr needed a stepladder just to kiss my ass."

There it was. She'd found an open sore on Demonica's tough hide. Her ego. Ally picked at it. She laughed at her. "Bull."

"Bull? Did you just say 'bull' to me?" Dem jerked to her feet and hero-strode from behind the fortress of her desk to face her. This was definitely not going to be a perfume

ad." "She didn't flinch. "Starr had title to more property than anyone in the city. A lot more than you, right?"

"Garbage addresses, environmental restrictions, limited air rights…What does more mean when it's more crap?"

"Sounds like rival talk to me. Must have felt bad to unzip and flop 'em on the table and come up short."

"Hey, you want to measure something?" This was good. She loved it when she rattled the tough guys into talking. "Measure all the properties Jimmy Starr stole from under

my nose." With a manicured finger, she poked her shoulder to punctuate each item on her list: "He fudged permits, he bribed inspectors, he underbid, he oversold, he

underdelivered."

"Gee," said Ally, "it's almost enough to make you want to kill him."

Now the developer laughed. "Nice try. Listen. Yeah, I made threats to the guy in the past. Operative word: past. Years ago. Look at his numbers now. Even without the

recession Starr was a spent force. I didn't need to kill him. He was a dead man walking."

"So says his rival."

"Don't believe me? Go to any of his job sites."

"And see what?"

"Hey, you expect me to do "all your work?"

At the door, as they were leaving, Dixon said, "One thing. I read in the Post he fell six stories."

"That's right, six," said Austin. The first thing he said and it was a shot at her.

"Did he suffer?" "No," said Ally, "he died instantly."

Dem grinned, showing a row of laminates. "Well, maybe in hell, then."

Their gold Crown Victoria rolled south on the West Side Highway, the AC blasting and humidity condensing into wisps of fog around the dashboard vents. "So what's your

take?" asked Austin. "Think Dem offed him?"

"Could have. I've got her on my list, but that's not what that was about." "Glad to hear it, Detective. No rush, there's only, what, three million more people to meet and greet

in New York. Not that you aren't a charming interviewer."

"God, you're impatient. Did you tell Bono you were tired of relief stations in Ethiopia? Did you push the Chechen warlords to pick up the pace? 'Come on, Ivan, let's see a little

warlord action?'"

"I just like to cut through, is all."

She was glad for this sea change. It got her off his personal radar, so she ran with it. "You want to actually learn something on this ride-along project of yours? Try listening.

This is police work. Killers don't walk around with bloody knives on them, and the home invasion crews don't dress like the Hamburglar. You talk to people. You listen. You

see if they're hiding something. Or sometimes, if you pay attention, you get insight; information you didn't have before."

"Like what?"

"Like this."

As they pulled up, the Starr construction site on Eleventh Avenue on the lower west side was dead. Almost noon, and no sign of work. No sign of workers. It was a ghost site.

She parked off the street, on the dirt strip between the curb and the plywood construction fence. When they got out, Ally said, "You hear what I hear?"

"Nothing."

"Exactly."

"Yo, miss, this is a closed site, you gotta go." A guy in a hard hat and no shirt kicked up dust on his way to meet them as they squeezed in the chain-link gate. With that

swagger and that gut, Ally could picture whooping New Jersey housewives sticking dollar bills in his Speedo. "You, too, buddy," he said to Austin. "Adios." Ally flashed tin and

Shirtless mouthed the F-bomb.

"Bueno," said Austin. Ally squared herself to the guy. "I want to talk to your foreman."

"I don't think that's possible."

She cupped a hand to her ear. "Did you hear me ask? No, I definitely don't think it was a question."

"Oh, my God. Austin?" The voice came from across the yard. A skinny man in sunglasses and blue satin warm-ups stood in the open door of the site trailer.

"Heyyy," called Austin. "Fat Tommy!"

The man waved them over. "Come on, hurry up, I'm not air-conditioning the Tri-State Area, you know."

Inside the double-wide, Ally sat with Austin and his pal, but" "she didn't take the chair she was offered. Although there were no current warrants on him, Tomasso "Fat

Tommy" Nicolosi ran enforcement for one of the New York families, and caution dictated she not get wedged in between the table and the Masonite wall. She took the outside

seat and angled it so her back wasn't to the door. Through his smile, the look she got from Fat Tommy said he knew exactly what she was doing.

"What happened to you, Fat Tommy? You're not fat."

"The wife's got me doing NutroMinder. God, has it been that long since I saw you?" He took off his tinted glasses and turned his pouchy eyes to Dawson. "Austin was doing

this article a couple of years ago on 'the life' on Staten Island. We got to know each other, he seemed OK for a reporter, and what do you know, he ends up doing me a little

favor." Ally smiled thinly and he laughed. "Don't worry, Detective, it was legal."

"I just killed a couple guys is all."

"Kidder. Have you noticed he's a kidder?" "Oh, Austin? He has me going all the time," she said.

"OK," said Fat Tommy, "I can see this ain't no social call, so go ahead. The two of us can catch up later."

"This is Jimmy Starr's project, right?"

"It was until yesterday afternoon." The wiseguy had one of those faces that was perennially balanced between menace and amusement. Ally could have read his answer as a

joke or a fact.

"Mind if I ask what your role is here?"

He sat back, relaxed, a man in his element. "Labor consultation."

"I notice there's no labor taking place." "Damn straight. We shut it down a week ago. Starr stiffed us. You know, nonpayment on our, ah, agreement."

"What sort of agreement was that, Mr. Nicolosi?" She knew full well what it was. They called it lots of things. Mostly the unofficial construction tax. The going rate was two

percent. And it didn't go to the government.

He turned to Austin. "I like your girlfriend."

"Say that again and I'll break your knees," she said. He looked at her and decided she could, then smiled. "Not, huh?" Austin affirmed that with a mild shake of his head.

"Huh," said Fat Tommy, "fooled me. Anyways, I owe Austin a solid, so I'll answer your question. What sort of agreement? Let's call it the expediting fee. Yeah, that works."

"Why did Starr stop paying, Tommy?" Austin was asking questions, but she found herself glad for his participation, tag-teaming from angles she couldn't take. Call it good

cop/no cop.

"Hey, man, the guy was strapped. He said he was and we checked. Underwater so deep he was sprouting gills." Fat Tommy laughed at his joke and added, "We don't care."

"Do guys ever get killed for that?" asked Austin.

"For that? Come on. We just shut it down and let nature take its course." He shrugged. "OK, sometimes guys get dead for that, but not this time. At least not at this early

stage." He crossed his arms and grinned. "For real. Not his girlfriend, huh?"

Over carnitas burritos at Chipotle, Ally asked Austin if he still felt like they were wheel-spinning. Before he answered, Austin slurped the ice cubes with his straw, vacuuming

for more Diet Coke. "Well," he said, finally, "I don't think we've met Jimmy Starr's killer today, if that's what you mean." Fat Tommy drifted in and out of her mind as a

possible, but she kept it to herself. He read her though, adding, "And if Fat Tommy tells me he didn't do Jimmy Starr, that's all I need."

"You, sir, are an investigative force unto yourself."

"I know the guy."

"Remember what I said before? Ask questions and see where the answers lead? For me they've led to a picture of Jimmy Starr that doesn't fit the image. What did he put out

there?" She drew a frame in the air with both hands. "Successful, respectable, and most of all, well funded. OK, now ask yourself this. All that money and he couldn't pay his

mob tax? The spiff that kept concrete pouring and iron rising?" She balled up her wrapper and stood. "Let's go."

"Where to?" "To talk to Starr's money guy. Look at it this way, it's another chance for you to see me at my charming best."

Ally's ears popped on the express elevator to the penthouse floor of Starr Pointe, Jimmy Starr's headquarters on West 57th near Carnegie Hall. When they stepped into the

opulent lobby, she whispered to Austin, "Do you notice this office is one floor higher than Demonica Dixon's?"

"I think it's safe to say that, even up to the end, Jimmy Starr was acutely aware of heights."

They announced themselves to the receptionist. As they waited, Ally perused a gallery of framed photos of Jimmy Starr with presidents, royals, and celebrities. On the far

wall, a flat screen soundlessly looped Starr Development's corporate marketing video. In a glass trophy case, beneath heroic scale models of Starr office buildings and

gleaming replicas of the corporate G-4 and Sikorsky-76, stretched a long row of Waterford crystal jars filled with dirt. Above each, a photograph of Jimmy Starr breaking

ground from the site that had filled the jar." "The carved mahogany door opened, and a man in shirtsleeves and a tie stepped out and extended his hand. "Detective Dawson?

Noah Paxton, I am…Rather, I was Jimmy's financial advisor." As they shook hands, he gave her a sad smile. "We're all still in shock."

"I'm very sorry for your loss," she said. "This is Austin Moon."

"The writer?"

"Yes," he said.

"OK…," said Paxton, accepting Austin's presence as if recognizing there was a walrus on the front lawn but not understanding why. "Shall we go to my office?" He opened the

mahogany door for them and they entered Jimmy Starr's world headquarters.

Ally and Austin both stopped. The entire floor was empty. Glass cubicles to the left and right were vacant of people and desks. Phone and Ethernet cables lay disconnected on

floors Plants sat dead and dying. The near wall showed the ghost of a bulletin board. The detective tried to reconcile the posh lobby she had just left with this vacant space on

the other side of the threshold. "Excuse me," she said to Paxton, "Jimmy Starr just died yesterday. Have you already begun to close the business?"

"Oh this? No, not at all. We cleared this out a year ago."

As the door closed behind them, the floor was so deserted the snap of the metal tongue latch actually echoed."

**Hey guys what did u think don't forget to read and review please also I am making a twitter account for my stories you when updates will be or new story **

**ideas its going to be my pen name IMJUSTSAYIN1**


	3. Chapter 3

hey guys im thinking of doing an M rated fic for another A&A story also if you would like to co op with me on it just PM me thanks bye and don't forget to to read and leave a review for New York HEAT.


End file.
